In India, Modi is everywhere

Wednesday

May 21, 2014 at 6:00 AM

By Mathew N. Schmalz

I spent last March in India.

And it was Modi, Modi, everywhere.

Narendra Modi that is — the man who will become the next prime minister of India.

I was staying in Varanasi, where I studied for a total of four years in the 1980s and 1990s. Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the state of Gujarat, had just announced that he would run, or "stand," for parliament from Varanasi.

This was a move with huge symbolic significance.

Varanasi is situated in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous and electorally significant state. But even more important, Varanasi is one of the holiest cities for Hindus: It rises on the bank of the holy river Ganges and is sacred to Lord Shiva.

Narendra Modi's party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has long espoused a Hindu nationalist ideology that emphasizes the "Hinduness" of India, often over against the religious diversity of India, with its large Muslim minority, and sometimes in tension with the undeniable diversity of Hinduism itself.

Concern about Narendra Modi focuses on how far he might be willing to push a Hindu nationalist agenda.

For example, the Muslim majority state of Jammu and Kashmir has a special status in the Indian constitution, which gives it a relative degree of autonomy. If that status is revoked — as the BJP's election manifesto proposes — it threatens to inflame tensions in that already restive region that borders nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Of particular concern is how Modi responded, or did not respond, to the 2002 riots in Gujarat that killed up to 2,000 Muslims.

The United States thought Modi complicit enough to deny him a visa — a position that the State Department finally backed away from when it became clear that Modi was becoming a political leader who could no longer be ignored or marginalized.

Indians concerned about the freedoms and safeguards of Indian civil society were looking at the rising Modi "wave" as a tsunami that would wash much of that away.

But during my visit, the excitement about Modi drowned out much of the concern.

A friend of mine perhaps encapsulated conventional wisdom best when she said to me, "What can you expect after people have covered the country in mud?" The word she used in Hindi was "kichar," which has a much rougher connotation than the literal translation "mud" conveys — it really suggests something more like "filth."

My friend was referring to the inevitable political response to the scandals of the ruling Congress Party and the muddled message of its political leaders, the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul. Mud is also connected to the lotus — a sacred Hindu image of auspiciousness and spiritual growth, for a lotus rises unsullied from the mud to blossom. The lotus happens to be the electoral symbol of Narendra Modi's BJP.

Many Indian friends of mine see a lotus blooming in the form of economic development. While Narendra Modi's rule in Gujarat has been marked by religious tensions, it also is associated with increasing business opportunities, not only for domestic and multi-national corporations but also for individual entrepreneurs.

And it is true that Indian economic growth has slowed in recent years — especially in urban areas like Varanasi. While Modi does have a strong Hindu nationalist constituency, his support was quite broad and cannot be reduced to simple jingoism. He himself worked at his family tea shop in his youth and his rags to riches story has a strong resonance for many Indians hoping for a society that increases opportunities for all Indians, not just those for those in the political class.

The BJP seems to have won an electoral victory great enough so that Narendra Modi will not need to govern by relying on messy and inevitably moderating coalitions. I would expect aggressive pro-business policies first, which, if successful, might allow for more controversial elements of the Hindu nationalist agenda to be brought to the fore.

Several days after the election concluded, friends of mine in Varanasi informed me that a large dairy company was planning to establish a processing facility in an industrial park just outside the city. People are already betting that business is going to get better with a new boss in town.

But there may very well be hidden costs for India now that it will be Modi, Modi everywhere — at least for some time to come.

Mathew N. Schmalz is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester.